I had this idea / pet project once where I did exactly this for email. Emails would immediately bounce with payment link and explanation. If you paid you get credit on a ledger per email address. Only then the mail goes through.
You can also integrate it in clients by adding payment/reward claim headers.
Bill Gates already had this idea. All efforts to change email were already documented 25 years ago. The biggest changes are it is more centralized these days, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, JMAP innovation, oh... and one more thing! It is HUGE!! HTML email is the default...